Malingering Monday

Date:                                       Monday, October 25th, 2010

Word of the Day:                    slugabed(SLUHG\uh\bed);one who stays in bed until a late hour, a sluggard

Weight:                                   210 pounds

Goal:                                      lose 100 pounds in one year duration

Pounds to lose:                       73 pounds
Waist Size:                             46 inches
Rowing Duration:                   101 minutes, eleven (11) seconds

There are only six days left in the month of October, gosh time is going by so fast, sometimes I wish I was back in public school, because those wobegone days seemed long, and then life, for me at least, would not speed by at the rate that it is now progressing, oh well,  at least I can vote and drive a car!!!!

Cover of Blue Hawaii 

Did anyone last night watch the movie "Viva Las Vegas," starring Ann-Margret and Elvis Presley, on the Turner Classic Movie (TCM) channel?  Out of all the "Elvis" movies, this one for me, is right up there with "Follow that Dream," and "Blue Hawaii," which are my very favourite Elvis Presley movies.   My very favourite Ann-Margaret movie is, of course, "Bye, Bye, Birdie," gosh, I think I would like to go back to Hawaii, better yet, I would like to live there, the only problem with living there is that all of my family would be living so far away from me, and I love my family, they're everything to me.  Clearly, I need to win the big MAX lottery this week, (it's at Fifty Million,) so I could afford to move my whole family to Hawaii to live there with me, yes that would be nice, very nice indeed!

Just in case you were wondering, I am not a slugabed and I called today's post, Malingering Monday, because Monday is the most popular day of the week when people call in sick to work.   The people are not actually ill, good Heavens no, they just do not want to work that day.   I know neither you nor I are guilty of malingering, are we? (this question is rhetorical, so please do not answer, please.

Just because it is on my mind, I want you to know that the word love is in all of the dictionaries of the world, so please cherish the importance of love, and don't hog love to yourself, love is like manure, its not worth a thing unless its spread out!, remember that.

Gosh, I am fatigued just thinking of my rowing session today, well, at least it is over, and my bottom can finally get back to feeling normal.

It has been a rather long time since I was able to complete 100 minutes on Cruella, and I congratulate myself for doing it today.   And while were on the topic of exercise, I must confess to you that I haven't yet begun resuming my swimming, and while I thank you for not throwing this up in my face, I really wouldn't have minded being reminded,  gosh I do have a unique way of putting similar words together, don't I?

Swimming on a daily basis is the cardiovascular exercise that I really want to get back to doing, DAILY, as swimming is an exercise that is really good for you, but you know that, don't you?  I was going to go swimming (hopefully) with a companion, yes of course I'm talking about Zac, (who else could it be?, don't answer that!,) as Zac too,  wants to start swimming again.  

Obviously, getting wet in the pool will have to wait until Zac returns from the cottage on the lake on Tuesday, which means that Zac and I will not get back to swimming, or dog-paddeling (it has been an awfully long, long time since I was last  in a swimming pool,)  until Thursday or Friday of this week, if we don't get back to it, more importantly, if I don't get back to it, I hope one of you does me the favour and remind me that it is one of my goals.

It was also one of my goals to conduct a grammar lesson each week, not to show off how apt I am at grammar, because I'm not, obviously, but to brush up on using good English, something I've haven't been doing for a long time.  Anyway, you and I were supposed to resume learning a little bit of grammar on Mondays.   Last week  I forgot to give a grammar lesson,  oh, stop your worrying, I'm not going to make today's session longer to make up for last week's omission, but I am going to give a grammar lesson nonetheless. 

Today, I hope (hope being the key word,) to clear up the difference between You and I, not the literal one, but, when one should say You and I or You and Me,. comprende!

Just between you and me, today I'm going to talk about the pronouns I and me.

Ever since I had the idea of talking about grammar once a week, I wanted to talk about the difference between you and I,  especially when I remembered that the United States Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, (I wanted her to be the President, but that's another post for another day,) chose the song “You and I” (by Celine Dion) for her campaign theme song.

Celine Dion's song “You and I” is grammatically correct, whereas the Jessica Simpson song “Between You and I” is incorrect and that is because YOU, I, and ME are Pronouns.  Am I going too fast?, okay, it is always best to start at the beginning, pronouns stand in for the nouns, in my example given above, the pronouns are:  Hillary and Jessica.

Pronouns can be subjects, objects, or possessive, I think I've talked about this before, once or twice, the subject of a sentence is the agent taking action, and the object is the thing or person being acted upon.   If one was lucky enough to say, “I love you,” I am the subject (the one doing the loving), and you are the object (the target of my love and the object of my affection).   That's not too difficult to understand, is it?, good, because I'm not finished!, and now things are going to get a little tricky, but you're smart,  and I know a thing or three,  so we should manage, and if we don't manage,  we can always go back to building houses out of popsicle sticks, but houses made of popsicle sticks aren't as popular as they used to be!!!!!!

A possessive pronoun shows that the thing or person possesses something.   I won't talk about possessive pronouns today, because of the fact that I need to learn and understand this a little better and before I preach the canons of possessive prounouns, they aren't relevant to the topic.

This next part you just kind of have to know.   If you've been speaking English for a long time, and hopefully you are not learning English and good grammar from me, you probably know it whether you think you do or not, and if you are learning English,  YOU HAVE TO MEMORIZE IT!

I IS A SUBJECT PRONOUN, AND ME IS AN OBJECT PRONOUN.

The proper sentence is I LOVE YOU, not Me love you, unless you're a slow learner,(and I'm not judging, I'm just trying to explain the difference, maybe I'm not as good a teacher as I thought I was.)   You use I because the pronoun is the subject of the sentence, and I is the subjective pronoun.

If you've been speaking English your whole life, (not an Americanized version of English, sorry Louise,) or perhaps a kind of English,  your ear quickly picks up the difference between right and wrong.   I play the drums versus Me play the drums.  Barbra Streisand loves me is the proper sentence, not Barbra Streisand loves I.   I'm the target of Barbra Streisand's love, (well I would be if Ms. Sreisand was lucky enough to meet me,) so I'm in the object position in that sentence, and the objective pronoun is me.   Again, in most cases,  your ear should pick up the difference.   Paul McCartney gave the drums to me VERSUS Paul McCartney gave the drums to I.

The reason it gets a little disconcerting when you combine I and me with you is that YOU is both a subjective and an objective pronoun.   It's one of those confusing things that just isn't fair,  nor is/was Joan Crawford.   Whether it is in the subject or the object position, you still use the word YOU.   You love Keith Urban and Keith Urban loves you.   They are both correct, and desirable, especially if you're my friend, Cherry.

 The song title YOU AND I is correct because of the line from the song, "You and I were meant to fly."    IN THAT LINE, YOU AND I are both in the subject case.   We're taking action, FLYING, this seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it?

CAN YOU FIGURE OUT WHY THE PHRASE “Between You and I” is wrong, and please don't answer with "it just sounds wrong," you don't want to insult me, do you?, except YOU, I know YOU want to insult me

BETWEEN is a preposition, and I believe we covered prepositions in our very first grammar lesson, some other prepositions are:  on, above, over.  These three are prepositions because prepositions usually either describe a relationship, or show possession, THEY DON'T ACT ALONE!  Prepositions often answer journalists favourite questions like, Where? and When?   For example, if I said, “Keep that secret between you and me,” between describes where the secret is to be kept.    If I said, “I'll tell you the secret on Luisa's birthday, ” on describes when the secret will be revealed.

Instead of acting alone, like Lee Harvey Oswald did, prepositions are part of prepositional phrases.   In the example sentences, between you and me, and on Luisa's birthday ARE prepositional phrases.  (If that sounds like a mouthful, well you should have tried creating/writing it.)   It's just a rule that pronouns following prepositions in those phrases are always in the objective case!    When you're using the objective case,  the correct pronoun is me,  so the correct prepositional phrase is between you and me,  that's not rocket science, is it?, and if you think that is rocket science, well you should try rocket science.   Lily, I wrote that last sentence with you in mind!!!!

Most grammarians, and I, are sympathetic to people who say "between you and I,"   because it's considered a hypercorrection, try telling the person sitting next to you that they made a hypercorrection, hehe,  I would love to see hiséher face.   Anyway, back to grammarians,  and my sympathies.   The theory is that people have been so traumatized by being corrected when sayings such as,  "Allison  and me went to the mall,"  instead of "Allison and I went to the mall,"  that people incorrectly correct between you and me to between you and I.   If remembering the Jessica Simpson (I predict that next year Jessica will be a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars,") song "BETWEEN YOU AND I," helps you to remember when to use "YOU AND I, YOU AND ME,"  then Jessica Simpon has done a service to the world, when I said that last sentence, the lights in my house went out, at the same time, I was also wondering if Nicky Lachey just fainted?, hehe, I do have a twisted sense of humour!!!!!


Topics coming soon:

Sex
Carol Channing
Anorexia